


Habits

by literature_and_ocean_waves



Category: Welcome to Hell - All Media Types, w2h
Genre: F/M, Fluffy and Cute, i love these two dorks, i wrote this a while ago and put it on tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6965650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literature_and_ocean_waves/pseuds/literature_and_ocean_waves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If Mephistopheles ever had to call these little encounters something, he would call them a habit. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Habits

If Mephistopheles ever had to call these little encounters something, he would call them a habit. 

Such a nice, little human word it was.   
Short, sweet, and not filled with the overly-complicated nuances that some other words had. 

Like… rendezvous.   
Ugh.   
Waaaaaaay too French. 

And fling was just too casual.   
It lacked the depth he knew their relationship contained. 

But habit was good. 

Mephistopheles turned and looked at the woman lying next to him.   
Providence had fallen asleep a few hours ago, as she always did.   
And just like he always did, Mephistopheles could not sleep. 

Oh technically he didn’t need sleep.   
It was just a pattern he had adopted.   
When your whole life revolves around the rhythms and cycles of humanity, you tended to fall into step with them. 

Another habit. 

Maybe Providence was right.   
Maybe he did appreciate human inventions a lot more than he let on…

Providence. 

His lovely companion was breathing softly beside him, chest rising and falling to a slow and steady beat.   
It was a deeply rhythmic sound that soothed his heart and calmed his nerves. 

Despite what he might protest to anyone outside of his own headspace, her presence really and truly was a comfort to him. 

Well… when she wasn’t awake anyway…

The awake Providence was completely different than the one whose head was using his lean chest as a pillow. 

Awake Providence was... wild.   
A cheerfully dancing whirlwind of bright smiles and sassy comebacks. 

She had showed up in his office completely out of the blue, just as she always did, plopping down on his desk and chatting with him about his décor choices. 

And just like every other time, his head would spin and his tongue would be tied and he would be swept up in the magical storm of her personality. 

Mephistopheles often compared these instances to what he assumed being high was like.   
His data, of course, coming from the reports of the many dead heroin addicts who found themselves trapped in his domain... 

He and she would spend hours talking after that.   
About nothing and everything and all the pieces in-between. 

He would tell her about his office renovations and she would playfully bemoan how much her angels were boring her. 

 

And sometimes she would mention, just offhandedly, that she missed him. 

And he would blush and stutter and try to turn to the conversation in a different direction.

And she would let him because she was nothing if not kind. 

 

Then she would kiss him and his previous embarrassment would all be forgotten in the starlight-taste of her lips. 

Mouths would hunger and clothes would disappear and they would inevitably find themselves in the spare cot that Mephistopheles kept behind a wall in his office. 

Just like his filing cabinets and an outdated PC, you would think that the Lord of Hell would have something a bit fancier than just an office cot.   
But you’d be wrong. 

Neither of them minded anyway.  
The cot was comfy and it suited their needs just fine. 

Many hours later, Mephistopheles would find himself exactly as he was now: lying on the bed with her, his body humming with satisfaction and his brain buzzing with uncertainties. 

These little… habits (?) happened just this way every… century? Maybe?  
Time was still a human concept that he could not quite comprehend. 

Oh humanity.   
With their habits and concepts and short, complicated lives. 

They were the bane of his existence and yet also sometimes his reason for living. 

 

Complicated indeed. 

 

Mephistopheles rubbed his temples, mind racing with the zooming thoughts of old memories. 

He didn’t always have such poor opinions on humanity.   
Once, he had thought them magnificent.   
And, in many ways, he still did.   
Their ability to dream and invent and live had never ceased to amaze him. 

But there were other qualities, ones that had not shown themselves until a long while after human creation, that only amazed him in the worst possible ways. 

Mephistopheles blew some angry air out of his nose, a bitterness congealing on his taste buds. 

Humans had started out so well in their small numbers.   
They were born, they lived, they died, all the while being completely in tune with the other creations around them. 

For no soul ever left the Earth, only moved around on it. 

Providence had been more joyous than he had ever seen her, watching the cycle of rebirth and reincarnation with proud, smiling eyes.   
And he had never been more joyous in watching the joy her creations gave her. 

But then things began to change.   
Her creations’ numbers began to increase rapidly, padded by former animal souls reborn (or even evolved as some might call it) into the circle of humanity. 

At first this change seemed like a good thing.   
Humans were learning new things all the time, growing ever more curious about the terrarium in which they lived. 

But their mannerisms had changed, too.   
And not for the better. 

No longer did they do things just for survival or just for living.   
They fought over nothing, spreading bloodshed wherever they met with each other.   
A single human would hold himself above all the others, never understanding that he, while unique and beautiful, was only a single part in a much larger system. 

This change was both shocking and heart-breaking for Providence.   
It had been one thing watching her creations kill each other respectfully for sustenance sake.   
Her early humans had thanked every animal they hunted.   
A habit Mephistopheles had approved of. 

Now they were killing for sport, with not a drop of brotherly respect to be found. 

 

And it had only gotten worse after that…

 

Poor Providence had been so miserable.   
She had drifted in the frozen nothingness of space, unable to take her eyes off the horrors her creations were creating. 

Finally, Mephistopheles couldn’t take it anymore.   
Providence was his true love and he wasn’t going to let anything hurt her like this.  
Not even her creations. 

So, behind her back, he had created a world of his own.   
One designed to punish the humans who had done wrong. 

It hadn’t been easy.   
Mephistopheles was not naturally a creator, so his realm lacked the genius beauty that the earth held.   
Instead, it was more jagged, more raw.   
A rough draft when compared to the brilliant masterpiece of Providence’s world. 

But Mephistopheles had always been clever.   
So he used the ugliness of his new realm to his advantage, keeping human souls locked in terror at their new surroundings. 

If a human was not going to honor the beauty of the earth, then Mephistopheles would show him a worse alternative. 

So every time a human died, one who had spent his lifetime treating his fellows with cruelty, Mephistopheles would pluck his soul from the reincarnation cycle and make him spend it being punished for his crimes. 

 

It hadn’t taken Providence long to realize what Mephistopheles had done. 

He shuddered at the memory. 

She had been livid, screaming and crying at his audacity to create this new realm. 

Mephistopheles had felt like his heart had been ripped in half that day.   
He had slunk back down to Hell, as the humans were now calling his realm, the full ramifications of his new exile weighing heavily in his chest and on his body. 

Mephistopheles sat on the cot, bile rising in his throat and body shaking from old wounds. 

His betrayal had taken on a physical form after that: his wings burned off, scarring deeply into his back, and the stars that once dotted his hair, just like in Providence’s glorious tresses, burst into supernovas, leaving behind nothing but the burning, eternal flames of the Damned. 

Mephistopheles slumped lower on the bed.   
He had never once regretted the actions he had taken.   
They had been necessary and frankly he was proud of them. 

Humanity had needed this place.   
It balanced out them and their universe.   
When a human died, they would be sent here for bad behavior, Heaven for outstanding behavior, and reincarnation for a bit of both. 

None of them were eternal and every human soul had been in all three at least once, before finding their way back to the cycle of rebirth. 

Even his loyal demons were once humans whose sins could only be atoned for by bringing in other sinners, learning how truly terrible their actions had been through a window into another’s life.   
And when those lessons had indeed been learned, they ceased to be demons anymore, their souls returning to humanity’s warm embrace. 

It was, without a doubt, a good system. 

So, no, Mephistopheles did not regret his decision.   
But he did regret something. 

He regretted that he had hurt Providence in the process.   
And that was something he could never forgive himself for. 

Oh, she had forgiven him.   
Long, long ago in fact.   
It was her nature, after all. 

Which was why they still had these little… habits. 

She wanted them to get back together, to move freely between realms with their fingers intertwined and their hearts filled with only each other. 

And Mephistopheles wanted that, too. 

Just not now.   
Not when the pain he had caused her, now just ashes in her memory, still burned so fiercely on his own conscious. 

He may forgive himself someday, but that day was not today. 

Today, he would lie on this cot with his most favorite person in all of creation and revel in it.   
Because it wouldn’t be long before the… habit was done and they had to return to their separate lives. 

Reflexively, he hugged her closer and was surprised to feel a hug in return.   
He looked down to find golden eyes, so wise and so warm, peering up at him. 

He gulped, unsure of what to so say. 

But she, who knew him so well, just placed one small, brown, square-shaped hand against his cheek and whispered the words he needed to hear most of all. 

“You should rest, my love.”

And, because he could never disobey her again, he did as he was told, settling in with her chubby arms around his slender waist and his pointed chin in her celestial purple hair. 

The final stage, as always, to their little habitats. 

 

The End.


End file.
